Project Type(s):
Population Health/Implementation

The WHO Director-General has identified mental health for accelerated implementation as part of WHOs 13th General Programme of Work (GPW13), covering 2019-2023. In response, WHO MSD established the WHO Special Initiation for Mental Health (2019-2023): Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for Mental Health; an ambitious plan to support 12 countries to include mental health in UHC, to support access to quality and affordable care for mental health conditions, reaching 100 million more people. The University of Washington was contracted to undertake the first six country assessments, which are expected to inform subsequent multi-stakeholder theory of change workshops.

Following these workshops, it is intended that individual countries will develop unique designs and costed country workplans, should they be successful in obtaining funds to proceed with a five-year implementation. The University of Washington lead the process and collate materials for six country assessments for WHOs Special Initiative for Mental Health. Preliminary reports were presented at a multi-stakeholder / multi-country meeting on 21-23 January 2020.Within WHOs cluster for non-communicable diseases and mental health (NMH) is the Department of Mental Health and Substance Use (MSD), which oversees policy and practice related to mental and brain health and substance use.

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